Archive for the ‘St. Louis’ Category

Well, it is Friday morning and I’ve survived my first work week back here in Saint Louis. The jet lag has been hitting me pretty hard as it usually does when I’ve flown back to the States. But I was doing pretty good yesterday and feel pretty good today. I’ve had a persistantly random cough of the phlegmy nature since the flights which also isn’t too unusual for me travelling long distances. The people in the office are a bit concerned that I brought SARS back with me. I tell them they are just being silly. It’s Bird Flu.

I’m planning on leaving work today and venturing up into the unknown wilderness known as St. Peters to buy a car. I’m sure there are ogres and dragons that far away from civilization but there are also a ton of car dealerships so it’s still rather convenient. I’ve got an orange Mitsubishi Lancer GTS being held for me to buy tonight. It’s pretty damn nice. I’ll get some pics snapped maybe this weekend while it’s still all clean and shiny.

Hong Kong is a really nice place. Aside from the pollution and the jungle weather it really is a beautiful place to live. When the pollution haze lifts during a holiday and you can see all the way from one end of the country to another (it’s preety small), it’s just amazing. On a clear night, the city skyline all lit up is one of the most beautiful man-made things I’ve seen.

Here’s a link to the official government weather site for Hong Kong: Hong Kong Observatory. It’s a nice site that is quite thorough with moving pictures of clouds in the area and it’s updated quite often. However I really think they could save a lot of time and money if the just changed all that to the following static text:

Hong Kong WeatherCurrently: Hot as hell and humid enough to sweat stain your shortsForcast for tomorrow: See above5-Day forcast: Between 28-30 degrees Celcius and 75-100% humidity. Rain can and will happen when you least expect it. If you see dark clouds or have lost sight of land that you could see only moments ago, head for shelter or buy an umbrella. Buy two, one will break.

And really that about sums it up during these summer months.

I saw a guy I know from St. Louis complaining on Twitter about how it was a miserable 50% humidity in my hometown. I about fell out of my chair laughing. I quickly checked the link above for the current weather and saw that the humidity was at 98% at the time. After living here for two years I really hope to be able to better handle the St. Louis summers. However…

The winters are going to fucking blow.

When Muse and I were back home for the Christmas holidays this past year, we literally froze our asses off. I left mine somewhere between Fenton and High Ridge. One thing the heat here has taken away from me is my extreme tolerance to cold weather. I don’t think I’ll be out and about in my shorts when the St. Louis ice storms come rolling through. Not for a while I think. Not if I want to have any more children.

Here’s something I never expected to see: iconic St. Louis and American company Anheuser-Busch has agreed to be purchased by European based InBev for $70 per share. The biggest maker of beer in the United States is selling to the Belgium based maker of Stella Artois and Becks. Why? I have no idea. I’d never even heard of Stella Artois till I moved to Hong Kong where it’s a moderately popular brand of beer.

But why is AB selling in the first place? Their stock prices are as high as they were years ago which indicates no serious problems. Is the rising gas costs hurting them that much? I doubt it since they use all 3rd party shippers. So why is AB selling?

They say that all the breweries will remain open and that St. Louis will remain as the world headquarters of the AB brand, but it will be run and owned by Brazilian management in Belgium. I’m still waiting to hear of some nefarious plot and the appearance of James Bond to put a stop to their insidious plans or world domination by mind control drugs in the beer. It would make more sense that way.

It seems that I never got around to making a post yesterday. Which is pretty damn lame if you ask me. Which you didn’t but if you had that would have been what I would have said. I have a stash of jokes and pictures that can be used in cases of post emergencies just like that but it does no good if I just plain forget.

Yesterday at work was insanely busy. I had a big implementation of a Cisco ASA 5510 firewall/Intrusion protection/VPN system for an affiliate company and it took much longer than anticipated to complete. I didn’t even really get to sit in my own office till about 3:00pm when I finally kicked the installers out so I could get some lunch.

Today has been busy catching up on all the things that didn’t get attended to yesterday as well as some things that needed to get done today. I spent some time talking to the guy who will be replacing me out here in Hong Kong once I leave to go back to St. Louis. He’ll be another ex-pat from St. Louis just like me and he has tons of questions just like I did when I was planning on coming here. I think he’ll do OK out here. He’s got some size 10 shoes to fill. Seriously, I’m going to leave him a pair of my shoes. No, not really. I’m all hopped up on sugar right now so anything I say can and will be held against me tightly and I won’t let go. What? Don’t mind me. My teeth hurt.

I believe Muse has already let the kitteh out of the bag, so to speak, but we will be coming home to St. Louis this year. Muse will be leaving Hong Kong before me to get the pets all sorted and safe. I was the first to arrive between us and I’ll be the last to leave. I suppose I should take some comfort in that I’ll get to live here in Hong Kong for just a bit longer but I also remember the loneliness of my first month here. But that was a long time ago now and I’m no longer a stranger in a strange land with no idea of what to do/where to go/what to eat. I no longer need to subsist on ham sandwiches and cans of soup. Although I may just because.

Now, when the time comes, I’ll probably spend my free time leisurely walking the street markets and shopping malls without the worry of wasting Muse’s time or needing to feed or walk the dogs. Maybe I’ll go directly from the office to a local bar with people from work and see what the night life is like before I leave. Maybe I’ll go for a hike without worrying about time constraints or anything but my own ability. Or maybe I’ll just sit in front of the computer and play World of Warcraft all night. It’s hard to say.

Actually when I say we will be coming home this year that makes it sound like something that will be happening at some far point in the future. But really it’s nothing like that. Muse may be leaving in a month or less. I won’t be here any longer than mid-August. It’s scary close to those dates already. By the end of August we will be back in the United States of America and trying to figure out life once more. This time with a baby on the way.

When we moved we did so on short notice and also threw in our wedding because it wasn’t a stressful enough experience. Now with a baby coming, I see now that we just really like to complicate things. I can offer no other explanation. We sold our house and our cars and most of the rest of the stuff we didn’t ship to Hong Kong. So add in another layer of sphincter-clenching in that we have a baby coming and we need to buy a house and at least one car but really we need two and baby stuff and furniture and Oh My Gawd what are we insane?